Farmers feed their livestock by hauling hay out to them in their pastures on a regular basis. Often, the hay is packaged into large cylindrical bales with a diameter of about 6 feet and a length of about 4 or 5 feet. These bales are too large and heavy (several hundred pounds each) to be handled manually. Typically, the farmer uses a tractor with a front-end spur loader to pick up bales of hay, one at a time, and individually haul them out to the field where the cattle or other animals are. This process must be repeated a number of times, with the farmer making as many trips as is needed to feed his animals. Often times the distance of each trip, from the barn out to the pasture, is a mile or more each way. As a result, livestock feeding can be a very time-consuming task. And because so many trips are required, the farmer's tractor burns a lot of fuel, further adding to the cost and inefficiency of hauling hay.
Accordingly, there is a need for a quicker and more efficient way to haul hay out to pastures to feed livestock. It is to providing a solution to this problem that the present invention is primarily directed.